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A regular Delawarean visitor and sometime blogger put the best comment post legalization so far…. From Delaware Libertarian.
It is time to sanction gay marriage. Gay marriage is different from civil unions. Gay marriage means much more. Someone who is gay, who can now be married for life is finally an equal citizen. Without that certainty the rest of their rights are meaningless….
“Oh, we’ve got nothing against gays!. You are equal to the rest of us, except, snicker, snicker, when YOU marry, we will give it a lower second class status and call it a civil union.”
Until Gay Marriage is made legal gays are only second class citizens….
It is interesting that very conservative parents of gay children, see it with open eyes… “Yeah, why can’t they get married?” Senator Portman who was flirted with as Romney’s running mate, and the odious Dick Cheney are both in favor of gay marriage. They credit their openness to learning from their children… every parent wants their child to be happy.
As a nation we’ve been here before. Blacks were given freedom by the Federal government, but local governments who disagreed, would not allow them to marry whites. Obviously the signal being sent was no, they weren’t equal after all. Mexicans in the West, legal and forced to be accepted so by whites, had to deal with local laws disallowing mixed marriages… After all, they “really” weren’t equal, not even close?.” American Indians, even though there were many interracial lifelong monogamous sexual unions during the exploration of our frontier, those unions were banned by laws intent on maintaining the purity of the Caucasian race, “Indians, equal with the white man? Get real!”…
All these laws have fallen away, shredded by common sense and common decency. It it easy to label a group with which we have no connection, as a “they” and say “they” are different, allowing it to be “ok” to treat “them” with disdain……
It is when “they” become part of “us” and we finally realize that treating “them” with disrespect is exactly the same as “us” being disrespectfully treated; we certainly would find that to be unfair. …
It is upon that realization, that discrimination against them… finally becomes unfair….
Our Constitution and Declaration of Independence are pretty clear… all humans are equal at birth… and once we widen our perception of what is human, we are forced by our beliefs to accept them into our family as well….
Hard as it was for the South, we finally accepted that slaves were human beings, and therefore agreed they should be afforded the same protection as their owners….
Hard as it was for mankind, we finally accepted that women were human too, and therefore agreed they should be afforded the same protection as their “owners”….
We later had to revisit the treatment of those whose ancestry derived out of our former African slaves, even to the point of guaranteeing them by law, actually making it punishable to treat them with disrespect, in order to drive home this point to Southerners, that…. all people are created equal….
Any baby born within our borders becomes a citizen. Whether its parents are or not… They were born here; they are equal to the rest of us… We allow any baby to grow up and marry any other baby who grew up here, unless they are gay.
The overwhelmingly majority of our culture has recently come to the realization that people who are gay, are created that way. They can change it no more easily than one can molt the color of their skin, or alter the slant of their eyes, or raise or lower their cheek bones… That is how God makes them…..
For anyone to vote no against Gay marriage in Delaware’s General Assembly, they will have to first imagine themselves in a Twilight world, one where genes gave dominance to gays, and heterosexuals occurred rather rarely… Being one of those heterosexuals, who had deeply fallen in love with someone of another gender, would you, a Delaware Representative, settle for only having civil unions for you and your heterosexual spouse, when all the gays around you were getting married and raising families?
Their gay clergy would spout: “Oh, you are one of those… We can’t let you marry….”
If you CAN’T IN GOOD CONSCIOUS agree that you yourself should be discriminated against because you happen to be heterosexual in a gay world, something you were born with and couldn’t change, then you cannot vote AGAINST gay marriage when it comes up for a vote with any good conscious.
Voting against gay marriage, carries the same moral price as did the voting against the freeing of slaves, as did the voting against allowing women to vote, as did the voting against letting blacks finally be allowed to succeed….
Now, since all of those are so much woven into the fabric of our society, we forget today that back then there were people who actually argued vociferously against allowing these citizens to become equal members of our society… it was just like people argue against gay marriage today.
They arguing were wrong then. Those same people doing it to gays, are wrong now….
Settling for Civil Unions instead of marriage is a slap in the face. It has only one point and that it to say: “Oh, you aren’t as good as us, and never will be.”
Each time in our nation’s past, it took the will of strong people to overcome the strong wills of weak people…. Delaware needs to allow gay marriage, simply because not doing so is the morally wrong thing to do…. Those crying against it with self thought-up platitudes, will come around eventually after the deal is done and the battle is over…
They have to!… One can only argue against what is right, … for so long.
Here is some original research.
The CAAP or Coalition of African American Pastors, is lambasting Obama for his position on Gay Marriage. The spokesperson is often on right wing news expressing the Black pastors disenchantment that Obama has come out for gay marriage.
The leader of that organization is William Owen’s Sr. Here is the published list..
Bishop George D. McKinney, Jurisdictional Prelate of Southern California Second Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction and General Board Member of the Church of God in Christ; senior pastor of St. Stephens Cathedral in San Diego, CA
Bishop Felton Smith, Prelate of the Tennessee Eastern First Jurisdiction and Senior Pastor of New Covenant Fellowship Church of God in Christ in Nashville, TN. He also serves as Episcopal Coordinator on the Board of Bishops for the Church of God in Christ.
Bishop Brandon B Porter, Prelate of the Tennessee Central Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction of the Church of God in Christ and Senior Pastor of Greater Community Temple, Memphis, TN
Bishop Ed Stephens, Jr., Senior Pastor of Golden Gate Cathedral, Memphis TN
Bishop James H. Gaylord, Prelate of the 1st Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction of Eastern New York and Senior Pastor of Kelly Temple Church of God in Christ, Harlem, NY
Dr. Dwight Montgomery, Pastor of Annesdale Cherokee Baptist Church, Memphis, and President of the SCLC (Memphis Chapter)
Dr. Chuck Singleton, Senior Pastor of Loveland Church, Ontario, CA
Bishop Robert Jefferson, Senior Pastor of Cullen Missionary Baptist Church, Houston, TX
Bishop Janice Hollis, Presiding Prelate of the Covenant International Fellowship of Churches, Memphis, TN
Rev. William Owens, Sr., Founder and President, Coalition of African American Pastors, Memphis, TN
Bishop David Allen Hall, D.M., Jurisdictional Prelate of the 1st Ecclesiastical Headquarters Jurisdiction of Tennessee and the Senior Pastor of Temple Church of God in Christ, Memphis, TN
Bishop Charles Rodgers, Senior Pastor, New Dimensions Ministries, Memphis, TN
Superintendent Pastor Jerry Taylor, Senior Pastor, Holy City COGIC, Memphis, TN
Pastor H.O. Kneeland, Pastor Union Valley Baptist Church, Memphis, TN
Pastor Robert Bowers, Pastor True Faith Baptist Church, Memphis, TN
Associate Pastor Ivory Jackson, Faith Temple Church of God in Christ, Memphis, TN
Elder Robert Morris, Acting Minister of New Jerusalem COGIC, Memphis, TN
The coalition statement is a project of Coalition of African American Pastors based in Memphis, Tennessee.
A quick look shows that none of these are national denominational churches. All are independent, stand alones. Checking the websites for some, one notices that despite supposedly being supposedly anti gay, there is considerable use of lavender colors in their web designs. Nice touch. Several churches have the same m/o. A pastor moves into a poor neighbor, begins a church, ordains his family, and promotes himself to Bishop.
That is fine, they certainly are allowed to do so.
But interestingly enough, one can find no church for the groups founder: William Owens, Sr. All searches lead to the CAAP and stop. Supposedly Mr. Owens was Nashville’s senior civil rights activist, but no internet evidence nor personal remembrances from long term Nashville residents, could find evidence. It may still be out there….
One other piece of evidence came from the AME Church, a legitimate denominational church with congregations scattered over the nation, who disclaimed any knowledge of Rev. William Owens, and alluded he was not a real pastor. “Contrary to the report, neither the AME Church nor its leadership is involved with or partnering with the Coalition of African-American Pastors.” He had no business including them in his press releases and they were disallowing any association what so ever.
Here is a list of some of the prominent press clips William Owens has made. No doubt, you have see some of them..
I was curious how someone could be on television all over the place and yet, have no history, no church, no congregation, no press. up until Obama had come out to say he was for Gay Marriage.
So I Googled William Owens Republican Party ….. and a whole new history opened up…
In 2004 he was alligned to:
The Arlington Group
801 G Street NW
Washington, DC 20001
Website: www.arlingtongroup.org
Founded in 2002 in Arlington, Virginia by then Executive Director: Shannon Royce… Members include the heads of 75 (as of September 2006) Religious Right groups such as Paul Weyrich, Don Wildmon, James Dobson, and Gary Bauer. The Arlington Group describes itself as a “powerful coalition of leaders from the pro-family community, [that] develops and executes national and grassroots strategies to: protect the traditional institution of marriage, increase respect for every human life, limit judicial activism, and act on other moral issues of concern.” (Oh, and it was nice to see Ken Blackwell’s name resurface here; coming again out of the shadows, huh)
Arlington Group members contributed $1,989,545 million in 2004 to pass ballot measures nationwide. In Ohio their contributions totaled $1.18 million, 98% of the total expenditures for the Ohio ballot.
In 2004, the Rev. William Owens, head of the Coalition of African-American Pastors in Memphis organized a meeting of his organization with the executive board of the Arlington Group. Owens is now a member of the AG Executive Committee.
The Arlington Group quickly announced plans to run a multimillion-dollar campaign to pressure the administration to select a right-wing successor. The group planned to target 20,000 pastors and congregations and use Christian talk radio and television, direct mail, and grassroots organizing.
Frank Cannon, head of the American Principles Project, a group opposed to same-sex marriage, confirms his group’s political action fund is paying public relations firm Shirley & Banister</a> to assist CAAP’s communications strategy.
Nuff said….
At the National Press Club in July, William Owen’s Sr. was accompanied by another pastor, William Owens Jr, his son. His son is head of the “Mandate for Marriage” initiative … announced the launching of a nationwide effort against President Barack Obama’s support for same-sex marriage …..
So I Googled William Owens, Jr.
I found out he was a graduate of Oral Roberts University. He is also head of something called Higher Standards Enterprises, which is a shell anomaly listing only himself as a member of “The Leadership Team”…..
Oh, and… he is the Publisher at Tea Party Review Magazine and looking over the electronic version one sees no mention of homosexuality.
And you might also remember him before Obama’s first term, as the author of Obama: Why Black America Should Have Doubts….
Meaning the whole anti Obama message involving Gay Marriage is simply cooked up…. Invented perhaps is the correct term.
Review: The Arlington Group invents a quasi religious organization to stage press conferences masquerading as black clergy, and incorporating a few gullible real clergy along for the ride. Main stream news organizations go out of their way and bend over backward to interview this made-up group, and I too swallowed the bait knowledgeable as I was, even though I thought it curious that all the black clergy I knew were rather tolerant of allowing homosexuals into their congregations, knowing full well that within the black community, homosexuality has existed outside the glare of publicity for a long time. Furthermore, I also knew within families, that homosexuality was tolerated at a much higher rate than found among its counterparts in the same economic class in white rural America…. So yes, it seemed odd, but I believed it… after all, who would lie about something like that?
Now we know. The Tea Party Express and the Arlington Group, as well as the American Principals Project, are what is funding Shirley & Banister Public Relations, who are behind the CAAP or Coalition of African America Pastors… 20 people out of 311 million.
Why are these guys even on my TV? (and why did my tv reception just go to black and white….lol.. ref. Obama speech 9/1/12 Urbandale,Iowa)
America gets up in arms when it’s privacy issues are at stake. How dare you know that about me! However when someone slips through our net and blows up a building or car, they exclaim, how did you not catch him in time?
Soon to be announced if not already out there, is our nation’s now no longer classified Trap Wire System. In the reports of its inception this package was held up as the ultimate surveillance tool. Cameras across the country would capture data from cities, highways, tolls, parks, public arenas, and everywhere else there is a camera, encrypt the data, then send it to a central point where it gets incorporated with all other data already compiled on every citizen. That data including public on line events such as dating services, chat rooms, Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, as well as corporate files, employee rosters, and the vast cesspool of corporate data gleaned each and every time you use your credit card.
On every adult citizen, a computer can spit out a file of facts that even that citizen doesn’t know… The computing power is unparalleled. You are sitting at the stoplight, and for no reason a camera goes off, you think weird, no one tripped it. and instantly your face has been identified, your file pulled, and a program knows you buy Colgate toothpaste 39% of the time. And it knows you are on Zoloft. Your credit score is 593. And you are cheating on your spouse of 27 years with a 19 year old who gets something from Victoria Secret every month…..
A song comes on the radio and your mind jumps to it and you go on never thinking of that random event again…….
Of course there is the other side of the story. You pull up to the light right beside the dufus mentioned above. The same thing happens. You wonder too. Your picture triggers an alarm because your image was last seen in the lower Philippines having been traced there from Manila before paying for the boarding of a private boat off Gov. Lim Ave, then going dark 18 months ago. The alarm is because you were once an acquaintance on the third level of a Detroit sheik who propagated militancy. The file shows you worked with explosives on construction sites, you were terminated at one time being blamed for some missing C4. You denied you had anything to do with it. The camera notes that your car is low in back, and alerts other cameras on the route your are traveling that you will soon be entering their view. Your facebook page shows you liked Iran and support Assad of Syria. Your high school psychological profile says you were quiet and brooding. Your license plate is registered to a car reportedly at the gas station on Rt.273 undergoing lengthy repairs. You are unmarried. You don’t date, and your credit card has a large cash balance, yet you spend very little and that is only on food, gas, and a furnished apartment in Christiana Meadows. As you drive by a transponder, your new phone signal gets captured, and all your calls are now being pulled up. You spoke with a person of high interest, 2 times this morning, for a length of one minute each. Your visage is updated to all local cameras and all transportation portals, and put at the top of each face recognition program. Someone is dispatched to scout your apartment.
You see. That is the dilemma. We enjoy our safety, and abhor our loss of privacy.
If you haven’t noticed already, on your emails sometimes you have these buried within the routing: Abraxas and the others you see will say, Stratfor…. Bloggers are very used to seeing these on a rather regular basis. They are everywhere across the net.
One thing noticeable during the Olympics was that the Brits live this way all the time. They are used to it and prefer the cameras and intrusive software over a coordinated attack on their trains. And no one can blame them. But what the Brits have, and we don’t, is a set of rules regarding this capturing of information. If someone violates this code as did Murdoch, then the ramifications are severe; perhaps bringing down an entire corporate empire. The CEO, Vice President, and quite a few others all charged with illegal actions.
And that is the lesson we need to take. Accept the surveillance but know that if anyone, anyone breaks the code of privacy… you are going to be filthy rich for the rest of your entire life at their or their employer’s expense…. For if that is truly the case, going back to the original story up top, if you got busted for your too hot to fail 19 year old lover, and lost your spouse, for $83 million, you really wouldn’t mind too much… My bet? You would see it as a blessing in disguise. And if you still loved your spouse, don’t worry. When you are worth $83 million, she won’t go far.
This has to become the future of surveillance. Here is why.
I’ll use Facebook as an example. I can always tell when one a friend has to hand over their password to their employer. Whereas they used to be so lively, responsive, and fun, they suddenly stop posting anything showing their personality. Their presence on line becomes reduced to “look at my kid”; “here is my dog”. Whereas you used to be able to talk to them about their spouse, their parents, how they were feeling, how they liked their job, how they were doing in the lover department, how their head was, what hopes and dreams they possessed, how drunk they got, suddenly their presence is as chilled as someone passing Checkpoint Charlie in the 60’s. There is a rigidity that they must conform to. There is a corporate mentality that they must express, and most deal with it by staying silent.
That is not what America is about. America is about freedom, about life…. about liberty….. and about the pursuit of happiness…… What once was open air on the internet is now poisoned with carbon particles, so much so that it is hard to breathe.
We can’t lose our nation’s fun-loving identity. And we can’t stop protecting ourselves by our newer and newer technology. So, what we can do (and we can easily do this), is not to constrain the surveillance, but penalize any misuse of the data that gets captured.
And make the punitive damages so huge, so grand, so big, that American citizens will actually enjoy having their privacy breached when it comes time for the judge to make the monetary judgment. Which means we need to rethink all things private, and that includes the intrusiveness of the press into private lives…
I’m always saddened when someone suffers because of something got out of control on their social media, and everyone gangs up on line, saying, “well, you shouldn’t have put it on the internet.”
Really? REALLY? A person should never have a light moment with an acquaintance, one of those few joyous moments we as people treasure forever, because someone they don’t know, someone they never met, might hack into their account, and spread it across the world?
That is ridiculous. The internet IS us. If we want a fun moment, we have the right to exercise it.. Back when I was growing up, laws were passed and on the books to control the positions that went on within the bedroom. That has fortunately faded away into being ridiculous. The same needs to happen on the internet. And the easiest way, the simplest way, is to have huge, gigantic fines, ones that are so big they will bankrupt anyone, and everyone who breaches another’s privacy.
So what if some entity knows you use Colgate 39% of the time. If no one else ever knows that they know it, as far as impacting anything in the real world, their knowledge of that minutia, doesn’t matter.
We need to start the process. We first announce the problem; we offer a solution; we educate the public; we elect responsible legislators, we pressure responsible legislators, we get legislation signed, and then, we relax and really enjoy the rest of our lives.
It is past time that our personal privacy be now given a price tag that is equal to what it is worth. Something in the range of tens of millions comes to mind….. Hell, you can get $90 million for spilling hot coffee in your lap…..
Case A: She was a single mom, working days as a medical assistant, and picking up shifts at a local restaurant… One night, after coming home almost empty-handed, she ranted on her Facebook page. Someone copied and alerted her employer. She lost her job.
Case B: Another local company, issued employee warnings to it’s entire labor force; “Don’t let a few moments on social media, cost you your job.”
Case C: Melissa Kellerman, after getting knocked over in yesterday’s game, had her twitter account pulled after commenting on it.
Photo courtesy of Yahoo Sports
The Cowboys Organization, called her in, and ordered her to delete her account…. Here are the tweets she deleted….
Here are a list of comments that one sees in public media whenever this topic is broached….
Only a fool believes Facebook is private.
Don’t put anything on the internet you don’t want everyone to see.
Social Media is just that. Social. Don’t be shocked when your private life goes “social”….
And all those statements are true. When using the Internet, you need to be guarded lest your employer sees what you are saying…..
Now here’s an interesting question: WHY?
WHY DO EMPLOYERS HAVE THE RIGHT TO DICTATE INTERNET PROTOCOL?
The initial response is that they get to protect their image.
When someone says something on the Internet, it is publicly damaging if negative.
But why not people? Why can’t they be entitled to use their right to freedom of speech on the Internet?
If someone is complaining to another about being harassed by their superior, and it get forwarded and she gets fired, is that right?
If someone is complaining to another about improper mine safety and the deliberate non compliance of safety issues being forced upon them by management, and it gets forwarded and she gets fired, is that right?
If someone is complaining about being treated unfairly by their management team, and it gets forwarded and she gets fired, is that right?
Probably not.
The Internet is not private. but there can be reasonable assurances that some things on the Internet are private. Discussing topics on the Internet should be as safe as walking through the park, discussing items there… Sure, there could be someone behind the tree, listening to everything you say, but the fact that they had to hide behind a tree to hear it, means they weren’t legally entitled to the knowledge. Likewise someone could steal letters out of a mailbox. Someone could tap a phone. Someone would listen to your cell phone with a scanner… All of which are illegal.
But, reading someones private inbox message because it is on the Internet, is not…
It needs to be.
The law needs to catch up to technology. People are allowed to say what ever they want. That is guaranteed.
It is time that same right is canonized into America’s legal code. So that if a corporation acts aggressively upon someone’s free speech, that company stands to lose a year’s profit in damages and legal fees. That is the level of penalty required to protect the privacy of every American, when it comes to their using the Internet.
El Somnambulo on Delaware Liberal announces that Bob Venables and others are preparing to propose a Marriage Protection Act: SB 27… This will limit marriage to a relationship between a man and a women..
Once again, Bob and his group are more worried about protecting their own assholes, than they are about the needs of their constituents…
Their priorities are ass backwards… When you can show me protection all children abused in heterosexual marriages, when you can show me protection for all women beaten on a regular bases in heterosexual messages, when you can show me a plummeting divorce rate especially in heterosexual marriages, then heterosexual marriage might sound like an institution worthy of protection…
But it until then, in their twisted moralism, they are serving to protect child abuse, wife beating, and painful divorce ….
Living in their cultist enclaves may make them unaware of how the rest of the world lives.. We think it is time they stop worrying about other people’s vaginas and assholes and instead focus ….. on helping people.
lol.
kavips 
